Beyond Time
by Dimples
Summary: The year is 2114. The place is Saint John the Baptist Church outside San Francisco. Father Leonard J. Wyatt has lost the only person he had ever loved. And now he is having visions. What are the strange visions of his past life trying to tell him?
1. Chapter 1

            The noonday sun gleamed through the stained glass window, sending brilliantly colored patterns of light onto the sheet of paper that lay empty in front of Father Leonard. Although he hadn't taken a vow of poverty, as most nuns and clergymen did, he found that conserving energy and using the natural light from the many massive windows helped him to write the sermons he delivered every week at Saint John the Baptist Church outside San Francisco. Without the burning glow of the fluorescent light bulbs above his head, he was usually able to concoct beautiful words of wisdom and faith for the homilies, but that day his mind was far away from his body. 

The priest wiped his hand through his blond hair, which desperately needed cutting, as he stared at the emptiness with contempt. He tapped his pen habitually on the sheet, making several small spots of ink appear on the page. Before he had even written the opening statement about the week's gospel, he had covered one corner with hundreds of black dots, the result of an hour of nervous energy that he could not dispel from his body. It was his anniversary; one year before he had been ordained into the priesthood, devoting his life to God above all. Only because he had lost the only thing he had ever loved.

            She had been his first and his last. His only, really. She had been all that he ever thought that he would ever need. Nothing could separate them, and nothing would, as far as he saw it. Even in death, she would always be with him, guiding him along the way, but there was always the great feeling of helplessness that swept over him whenever he thought of her. He hated her for leaving him, hated her for letting something happen when she had told him not to worry, hated her for writing the stupid letter. But he hated her the most for not giving it to him herself, before she died, but waiting to have it found by her parents after she was gone.

_                                                                                                                        Sept. 24th, 2113_

_Dear Leonard,_

_            I'm sorry that I couldn't be with you when you read this, since I know that because you are reading it, I didn't survive. It was never meant to be this way, and I was going to give it all up for you. The power, the fights, even the little feeling of joy that filled me up when I saw the latest one fall into a thousand little pieces before my eyes. I never wanted it to end with you all alone. You deserved someone better, someone who would make you happy your entire life, and maybe I just wasn't the one to do it. Perhaps it was that I wasn't the type to settle down. It was all part of the job description. You knew what I did for a living and you didn't try to change it, and for that I'm glad. It's not everyday that you meet a guy who doesn't care that you hunt demons as a full time career. None of it mattered, though, because I needed you more than I needed the job. But it seems that I wasn't able to keep my end of the bargain. I loved you when I met you, I loved you when we kissed, I loved you when we were together, and even more when we were apart. So just think of this as me loving you so much that my heart is bursting for you. _

_            Remember to keep your chin up when you walk, and to put the toilet seat down, because you know that I hate it when you leave it up. But most of all remember that I love you forever, 'til death do us part. Bye baby. _

_                                                                                                            Always and Forever,_

_                                                                                                                        Phoebe_

            The funeral had gone badly, though he didn't remember crying at all. Her mother fainted as they lowered the coffin into the ground, and by the time the reception afterward was over, her father was too drunk to realize that his son was missing in action. The worst part of it was that no one noticed him as he slipped out of the foyer and made his way silently up the stairs to her room. He sat on her bed, read her diary, held the ragged stuffed bear that she had left on her pillow. The box from the engagement ring that he had given her lay open on the bedside table, empty, as she was wearing it when she was placed in her grave. He ran his fingers over the soft felt lining and clamped it shut violently, then flung it down onto the quilt before taking the diary, placing it in his coat pocket, and dashing from the house without a word. 

            The memories of the last day he saw her face flooded him as he strode through the massive church, walking between the pews and staring out the picture windows that depicted Jesus' great miracles. The fishes and loaves, water to wine, raising Lazarus, and finally his own resurrection from the grave. Father Leonard had studied each one individually, finding flaws with each and wondering why Jesus had not given the woman he loved the miracle that she had so deserved. None of these thoughts entered his mind as he passed through the aisles and out into the bright afternoon. The only thing he thought about was remembering what he had lost.

***

            The tombstone was nestled underneath a grove of trees at the back of the cemetery in the family's plot. It was a solid brick of limestone and granite engraved with script lettering and gold embossment. Her name glittered as the light from the setting sun ricocheted off the words. It had taken him four hours to reach the old city, and two more to find the grave. He carried her letter in one hand, and his rosary in the other while he passed through the knee-high grass in the field around the plot. Once the single stone was within his sight, he slowed his pace, fearing to see the weeds overrunning her beautiful resting place. But he kept on, knowing that he had enough guilt on his mind for ignoring her, and he didn't need even more on his conscience by leaving when he was so close.

            He swung open the rusting, cast iron fence and stepped into the penned area that stretched for a hundred yards in either direction. In the center he saw the stone, her stone, the only one that seemed to have been recently visited. A small plastic container of dead, dry carnations were stuck into the ground just a foot away from the stone, and he kicked it away as he knelt down and looked at the words for the first time in a long time.

            "In memory of Phoebe Warren," he read aloud to himself and the squirrel, which ran along the fence next to him. "Our beloved daughter, sister, and friend. May her soul find peace wherever she may go. 2089 – 2113." He put the tip of his finger over her last name, and with tedious care and effort, wrote his own last name over her own. "W-Y-A-T-T. The name should have been yours. You were supposed to be my wife… my wife…" 

            The priest wiped away the tear that crept down his cheek and rested his forehead against the cold rock. Once his eyes were closed, he was swept away in what seemed to be a dream. But it could not have been a dream. He was not asleep, so it was a vision. 

In the darkness behind his lids there came a light, not bright as though he were on the tunnel after death, but bright enough so he could make out the faces that had been masked by the black. There was a woman, beautiful and young, all dressed in white and surrounded by her family. He saw his love, Phoebe, in the background as the young woman walked with her father up to an altar. There, by the altar, he saw himself, sharp and handsome in a black tuxedo. He was smiling at the stranger in front of him, and he realized that he was marrying the beautiful woman. She was not the woman he had once loved, but someone close to her. Her friend, or even her sister, as they looked so much alike. This vision, he figured, as he saw the ceremony go on, was not a vision of the future or of the past. It wasn't a dream and it wasn't real, but somehow he felt that it had happened to him before. As though in another lifetime. But was it possible? In a life before this one he had not loved the woman he had loved in this life, but another. She had been his soul mate… right?


	2. Chapter 2

            "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned…" 

            An endless string of confessions had driven the priest into a frenzy of his own self-reflection. The vision he had had in the cemetery haunted him every waking moment, and in his dreams he saw the stranger's face, her eyes matching those of the Phoebe's, her hair the same long, silky shade of chocolate brown. He could still feel her lips on his own; hear her words as they replayed in his mind. The vows, said so many years before, with her family by her side. Yet he had been alone, but somehow his lack of relatives at the important didn't seem to affect him in the vision. 

            "Then I said the 'F' a few times, but it's not really that bad, is it Father?" The young man behind the wooden screen seemed embarrassed to be confessing his indiscretions, even to the priest who couldn't see his face. 

            Father Leonard shook his head and tried to press away the headache that was growing in his temple. Frustrated, he jumped into the boy's stuttered admission and cut him off. "Five 'Our Father's', ten 'Hail Mary's'. Same time next week." Leonard made the Sign of the Cross in the air with his hand and slid the divider shut with a slam, then walked out the back door that led into his small office. He paced up and down the length of the room and tried to remember every point in vivid detail. There was the woman behind the altar who looked almost transparent, the sisters in their pale pink bride's maid's dresses, and the parents, obviously uncomfortable with each other, all smiling as their sister and their daughter married the man of her dreams. Nothing escaped him as being foreign, or out of place, until the end of the ceremony, when the surprise came. He saw himself throw light from his hands, into the air where it hung. Everyone was smiling and laughing; it wasn't strange to them. 

            He stopped pacing and looked up at the clock. It was half past four, just half an hour before the Saturday service, and he still hadn't completed his homily. He heaved and plopped into his broken armchair and rested his head in his hand. With the other, he brushed his fingers over the letter and prayed for an answer to the vision. What he received wasn't exactly what he wanted.

            Another vision rushed through his mind, blanketing the darkness with a blinding light. The same beautiful woman that he had married in the first vision was laying in a bed, her hair matted to her face, but a still smiling as she held a tiny baby wriggling in her arms. He saw himself again, crying with joy as he held his child in his arms. There were no doctors, no nurses, not even a midwife to help with the birth. He saw Phoebe, his love, standing on one side of the woman, and another woman, who wasn't the same woman as in the original vision, on the other. The calendar above the bed where the new mother lay read February of 2003, more than one hundred years before. 

He didn't hear a word that passed between the group of people, and he only attempted to decipher the words they exchanged. He made out 'beautiful', 'baby', 'love', and 'mother' among their lips, but he knew that these were all common in the situation which took place before his eyes. But, just as he thought that the vision was over, when the faces began to fade, he heard his voice whisper.

_            "I love you… Piper."_

***

            The priest didn't make it to the Saturday service later that night. Instead, he found himself driving the church's shuttle van down the empty back roads along side the highway that lead into San Francisco. He needed to find out what was going on in his mind before he could go about trying to influence others. He was a priest of the Catholic Church. He _knew that reincarnation didn't happen. He __knew that God saved a place for people in heaven. He __knew that Phoebe was with Him there. But if he __knew that all of this was true, then why did the visions seem so real? Why did he feel as though he had seen them before? If not in this life, then in another? And why, above all things, was he seeing himself in the year 2003? He needed answers, and he wasn't going to find them at Saint John's. He had to return home, to the place where both he and Phoebe had grown up. _

Leonard wasn't sure what drew him back to quiet Prescott Street, but the eerie feeling of belonging that he had never felt, even while Phoebe had been alive and living there, crept across his heart. The pink Victorian manor where her family had lived for as long as he could remember stood tall amongst the other houses on the block that dwarfed in comparison. He pulled into the long driveway and shut down the van while he stared up at the attic window for a few minutes, remembering all the time that he had spent there with her. He stepped out into the darkness and strode across the decaying lawn, smacking the 'For Sale' sign on the way. The front door was open, since there was nothing inside the house worth taking, and he let himself in with caution, avoiding the spider's web that hung across the frame. Directly in front of him was the dining room, to his left, the solarium, to his right, the living room. The stairs that would take him up to her old room were also just a few feet forward, but he was afraid of breaking them under his weight. With tender care, he took them one by one, wincing as they creaked and groaned, but did not give way. Once he reached the top, he could hear his own footsteps echo throughout the house as he followed the hallway to her sanctuary, where he paused outside the door. Resting his hand on the knob, he waited, as though he was waiting for permission to enter. He sighed when he realized that no one would answer his silent request, and pushed open the thick mahogany door. 

Inside, her bed and dresser had been emptied and stripped of all the things that had once made the room hers. The yellow wallpaper had faded into a dull tan that made the area dreary. The windows were boarded up, and her closet door locked, but there on the floor was a single cardboard box, left to gather dust until the next occupants arrived. He knelt down, peeled off the packaging tape, and pulled back the flaps. 

The box had only one object inside, surrounded by thousands of tiny unbreakable bubbles that were used instead of packing peanuts. He lifted out an old book with great care, and placed it on the floor by his feet. It was heavy, probably about ten pounds, and the thick spine didn't reveal anything about the contents inside. On the cover, however, was a red circle with three interlocking, pointed ovals of the same color overlapping it. Curious, he opened to the first page, and in bolded, colorful script, he read, "The Book of Shadows." 

The pages that followed were filled with vibrantly colored pictures of various demons and warlocks, some more frightening than others, and the incantations with which they could be killed. Each snarling being instilled a new feeling of fear and respect into his heart. Fear that there were more of these creatures roaming about, and respect for anyone, especially Phoebe, who would dedicate their lives to ridding the world of such abominations that he never knew existed. He then came to page that made him falter. There, on old photo paper that was yellowed with age, was Phoebe, her arms wrapped around another man. His hair was dark, and his deep blue-green eyes accented his bright smile. An arrow, drawn in dark marker, was pointing at the man and had a name written above it, indicating his identity. 

"Cole." Leonard whispered the name softly to himself, running it over his tongue in anguish. Why was she so happy with him? And why was his picture in this book that was riddled with evil? He glanced back at the demon on the opposite page and grimaced. His blood red face was shadowed with black lines like scars that ran from the back of his bald head to his chin. Belthazor, as it read across the top, was half human. Was this Cole character Belthazor? Leonard wasn't sure that he wanted to find out, so he swallowed his wounded pride and flipped through the pages until he was stopped short. A final lurching vision knocked him over as he kept his hand on the page in question. Before his eyes he saw the woman he had married, Piper, alone in a nursery, her baby in her arms. She was crying, her back against the wall. Above her was a wall calendar hanging on the month of July in the year two thousand and three. He heard pounding against the door and for a moment he thought that she was being robbed. Instead, a large, muscular arm punched through the wood and turned the knob into the room. The thing entered, it's skin the color of a man, but its eyes were as red as fresh blood. He advanced on her, snarling. He could hear everything,. The monsters heavy breathing, the baby's sobs, and her anguished calls for help. He heard his name, she was calling him, but he didn't arrive in time. Piper put her hand in the air and gestured at him, like she was trying to push him away or freeze him. When nothing happened and he came at her, she panicked and crouched on the floor, her hand over her baby's head, she turned away, hoping to take the brunt of whatever attack would ensue. It didn't matter, because an instant later, the red-eyed being squinted his eyes, and both she and the baby were lifted into the air, where they convulsed until the spasms snapped their necks and they laid still. The man, sweat pouring from his temples, relaxed as the veins that had been bulging from his head receded back beneath his skin. Satisfied with his kill, he smiled as he heaved for air, and then vanished in a puff of black smoke. 

***

            The book laid open on the front passenger seat during the drive back to Saint John's. The picture of the demon that had attacked the woman in his vision was not in the book. His hand, when he checked where he had stopped, had fallen on a spell to travel through time. Once he had marked the page and searched the book for a man resembling the one in his vision, he had taken the book and tucked it under his long trench coat and walked out without finishing his trip down memory lane. He couldn't get the image of the woman and her child convulsing out of his mind. He could still hear their screams in his head, reverberating throughout his soul. Something was pulling at him, beckoning him to read the words from the spell aloud. Try as he might, he couldn't push them away. His conscience beat them back into his memory, and forced him to see them again and again on what seemed like a never-ending loop. 

            The road around him was empty, most of the travelers having headed home by that time in the late evening. The priest sighed and looked around before pulling off onto the shoulder. He took the book in his lap and ran his finger over the words as he read them aloud.

            "_Sins of my ancestors, lost amid a sea of time, show me a way to change the past, and help me remember what once was mine…" _

            ****


	3. Chapter 3

          The priest recognized his surroundings as he opened his eyes what seemed like only a second later. He was standing in the foyer of the same manor that he had visited earlier, although it seemed so much newer, as though it had been restored and repainted. The walls were no longer cracking, the paint wasn't chipped, and the solid wood floors shined as though they had just been cleaned. He took a few steps forward as he began to look around some more. It was the same house that Phoebe had lived in before she died, but all the furniture was different. The picture windows were clean, and the solarium was used as a sitting room rather than a billiards hall, as he remembered it. Everything he had seen in the history books about turn of the millennium culture was here in this house, and then he knew. He had made it.

            "Leo!"

            He spun his head around as a familiar voice called his name. The woman from his vision approached him at a jog, her long chocolate hair falling in waves behind her. He gulped as she neared him and gave him a furtive glance. "Piper?"

            "You say that like you weren't expecting me to be here. What are you wearing? You know what? Never mind. I don't care. It doesn't matter. But I should remind you that Halloween isn't for another four months… Hey, where's Mel?"

            Leonard shook his head. "Who's Mel?" he asked, trying to get a grip on his surroundings before he went insane. How did she know his name? It was all too strange. 

            The woman laughed sarcastically. "Ha ha. Very funny. I'm serious. Where is she?"

            Another voice from around the corner in the living room drew her attention away from him, but not for long. A tall, muscular blond man came into the foyer, an adorably chubby baby with dark hair like her mother's wriggling in his arms. 

"Where is who?" the man asked as he bobbed the baby from one arm to the other. The man, who could have passed for Leonard's clone, dropped his jaw in surprise as he noticed the minister in his entranceway. Unfortunately, the man wasn't the only one who noticed how much the two of them looked alike. The baby's mother, not to be lenient when it came to her family's safety, threw her hands up in the air, just as he had seen her do in his vision. Unfortunately for him, he was not immune to her power, and was blown backward as he felt a great pressure on his chest. The rosary beads around his wrist glowed with an amber flame as they took the brunt of the attack, just leaving enough force to send him flying backwards and hit his head against the side of a chair. 

            Leonard blinked groggily several times as he watched brightly colored spots dance before his eyes. He felt dizzy as he heard a panicked voice over his head.  

            "Why didn't he blow up? Is he immune to my powers? Oh God, we're all going to die…"

            His own voice, although not from his lips but from those of his assailant's husband, calmed her with gentle reason. "Look at him, Piper. The rosary saved him because he's a force of good. You're lucky he had them or you would have killed your own innocent."

            "But what if he stole them from some poor priest that he killed? Huh? What then?" She began pacing by his feet as he rubbed his forehead, which throbbed in pain. 

            "A demon can't hold something as pure as a rosary," her husband replied. "It's a blessed object, and would burn his flesh if he tried to take it. He's not a demon, Piper. He's an innocent. And now look what you've done." Leonard felt the husband lean down over him and place a hand over his head. He saw a single flickering light from his palm, and then it died. The man gazed at his hand in confusion and then tried again, but nothing happened. 

            "See?" the woman hissed, pulling at her husband's shirt with one hand while juggling her infant in the other. "You can't heal him, so he's not an innocent. And besides, how do you explain the likeness, huh? It's too uncanny."

            "We won't know until we find out," came the answer as Leonard found himself on his feet and draped over the man's shoulders. His vision cleared as he plopped into the couch in the next room and held his head in one hand. He brought his fingers down so he could see them, and sure enough, they each had a thin line of deep red liquid on their tips. He grimaced and wiped the blood on his black pant leg. The woman, whom he assumed was Piper, sat down across from him on an antique-looking love seat after she had handed him a hanky, her eyes narrowed and her arms wrapped firmly around her child, who whimpered to be let down. She seemed to be about a year old, and when she smiled at the minister he could see the nubs of several tiny teeth in her mouth.

            "You've invaded my house, you've cloned my husband, and now you're bleeding on my furniture. It would be nice if I knew who you were." Piper bounced the baby, Melinda, on her thigh for a second before handing her off to her husband. She crossed her arms over her chest and waited impatiently for his answer.

            "Reverend Father Leonard J. Wyatt," the priest replied, still a little shaken while he wiped his head clean. "at your service. But, if I may, can I ask what you did to me back there?" He pointed towards the breezeway. 

            Piper flicked her wrist, dismissing the question with a roll of her eyes. "Yeah. Leonard J. Wyatt. That's really original. Who do you think you are, coming in here like you own the place? And why in God's name _are you here?"_

            Leonard sat forward in attempt to reconcile the rift that he had obviously caused. "Well, you see, that's kind of a long stor-"

            "Alright, Father Reverend Whatever Your Name Is-"

            "Actually, it's Reverend Father, but-"

            "Enough!"

            Both Piper and Leonard whipped their heads around as her husband threw up one free hand to stop the verbal battle. "Piper, calm down. You… uh, Reverend, you just answer the question. What are you doing here?"

            Leonard sighed. "I was trying to say that I found this book, and I read a spell of some kind, which brought me here."

            "But you're a priest!" Piper interjected. "You're not supposed to be doing spells!"

            "No, I suppose I'm not," Leonard affirmed. "But I did, and here I am."

            Piper furrowed her brow and passed quick glances between the two Leo's. "What book did you say you found this spell in?"

            Leonard was about to answer, but was cut off abruptly as the front door opened and closed with a slam. Another woman, one he recognized very well, stepped around the corner, a shopping bag in hand. 

            "Piper, you will never guess who I saw at Saks tod-AH!" The woman dropped her parcel onto the wood floor, and Leonard could hear the glass object inside shatter. "There's two Leo's!" 

Leonard stood slowly as she watched him, and he made his way over to her with caution. His heart fluttered in his chest as he neared. He could smell her, hear her, almost taste her. Her long brown hair was different than he remembered it, cut shorter with a sort of shag look, but the deep brown puddles that were her eyes had remained the same. He reached out and touched her cheek as he circled around her, like a lion around it's prey. She jumped, but he continued to stare.

            "Whoa there, tiger," she said, pushing his hand away from her face. "Don't you think we ought to get to know each other first?"

            Leonard ignored her subtle attempt at humor and came around to stand in front of her, cradling her chin in his hand. "I never thought that I would see you again." Before he knew what he was doing, he pressed a soft kiss on her lips, feeling lost in the sensation all over again. She pushed him away as he heard Piper retch in the background.

            "Blech. Okay, this is way too creepy." She took the minister by the shoulder and led him back to his place on the couch, but his gaze was fixed on the woman in the doorway. She was his soul mate. His first, last, and only love: Phoebe.

            "Out with it, buddy," Piper pulled his eyes away from the awestruck Phoebe, and once again he was seated for an interrogation. "What are you doing here and where did you come from?"

            Leonard, sensing a bit of tension in the air, decided it was best to just get right to the point. "I came from Saint John the Baptist church, just outside beyond the Bay Bridge. As to what I'm doing here, even I'm not really sure."

            Piper put her elbows on her knees and glared at him. "But how is that possible? That church isn't even finished yet. I just saw the plans the other day at the city council's office when I went to renew the liquor license."

            Leonard nodded. "Yeah, and it won't be finished until the year 2005, and I won't officially join the parish until 2114."

            "Hold on a second," Phoebe cut in as she took a seat as far away from Leonard as she could get. "So what are you, Leo's immortal future self or something?"

            "I don't think so," Leonard replied while he watched his double set Melinda into a playpen by his chair. "I think I'm his future life."

            "Different bodies with the same soul," Leo chimed in. "That would explain why I couldn't heal him. I can't heal myself."

            "Okay, so we know who you are, and what you are," Piper said, flicking off the items on her fingers. "but now we really need to know what you're doing here. If there's anything that we've learned in our years as witches, it's that everything happens for a reason. What's your reason for being here, of all places?"

            Leonard looked down at his hands, at the half melted rosary beads around his wrist, and sighed. He looked up, directing his voice at Piper, but fixing his eyes on Phoebe. "I was in love with her. More than anything else, I just wanted to marry her. But she went and got herself killed."

            "Who?" Phoebe asked, her voice low and anxious, as though she didn't understand his destitute stare. "Who was killed?"

            Leonard lifted his hand and pointed at her. "You were."

            Phoebe gulped loudly and stood, shaking slightly, then turned her back to the group as she walked out into the dining room. "I-I'll be, um, in the kitchen… with Paige, if you need me."

            Piper nodded to her and focused on Leonard again, taking in a slow, deliberate breath. "How?"

            "A demon, I don't know which one, but it's the only logical explanation. After she died, I was heart broken. I looked to God to find answers to all my questions, and so far I haven't found any, but I'm still searching. I spent a long time dwelling on the past, without ever confronting it. I didn't visit her grave until just yesterday, but I suppose that yesterday hasn't happened yet. But when I did finally go to see her, I had… a vision, if you could call it that."

            "A premonition?" Piper arched her eyebrows apprehension. 

            Leonard shook his head. "This had already happened. I saw myself - well, you, actually," he pointed at Leo. "and you, together. I saw your wedding, the light you threw from your hand, the transparent woman behind the altar, your sisters and your parents. It was all so strange, but everything I saw seemed to fit. I felt as though I had really been there, done and seen those things."

            Leo gave an agreeing nod. "So you had a vision of your past life. It's not uncommon."

            "No, maybe not for you," Leonard snorted back. "But this whole magic thing is kind of new to me, so give me a break here." He paused as Leo nodded curtly, then continued. "The visions started when I traced my last name over Phoebe's on her headstone. The second vision, a different one this time, hit me while I was rereading the last letter she ever wrote to me. I saw all of you again; you, Leo, and your sisters. Except that one of them was missing, replaced by someone else. Almost a younger version of herself."

            Leonard watched as Piper's shoulders slumped. "Prue, my older sister, was killed by a demon about two years ago. We met Paige, our half sister, not long after and we've become a family again."

            He smiled comfortingly and sat back on the couch. "I'm sorry." Piper waved away the condolences, and beckoned him to continue with his story. Leonard explained about the vision he had had of her and Melinda, while trying to avoid the dubious glares he was receiving from Leo across the room. "And the third…" he trailed off, debating about whether or not to tell then everything all at one time. He didn't want to upset Piper, after all. She seemed fidgety, almost jumpy when it came to her daughter and her family's safety. He glanced over to the playpen on the floor, where Melinda was standing upright, holding onto the rail with her small, pudgy hands. He smiled and looked up at Leo, who was still in the process of trying to stare him down. "May I hold her?" Leo, reluctant, sighed and lifted his daughter out of the mesh cage and set her down on the floor. She waddled unsteadily over to Leonard, who picked her up and laughed as she gave a hard tug on his ear.

            "That means she likes you," Piper said with a sheepish smile. 

            Leonard, grinning madly, gave her a subtle wink. He looked back to the toddler wriggling in his lap, but his grin faded as he saw her disappear in a blaze of blue light, and reappear in her mother's arms. She laughed wildly when she saw the confusion on his face, and grabbed her toes in delight. Piper, attempting unsuccessfully to hide her amusement, bobbed the baby on her lap for moment. Before she could bring herself to say something without bursting into hysterics, another wave of blinding lights swept into the room, and stopping in the middle of the hall, where they melded together to form the body of the young woman from Leonard's second vision. She took a few quick glimpses about the room, surveying both of the look-alikes, then she rolled her eyes and headed off toward the kitchen. 

            "Whatever you did this time," she called over her shoulder, "it better not involve the power of three until after lunch."

            Piper, unable to control herself any longer as she watched the expressions on Leonard's face change at random, erupted into a fit of glee as she shook her head. "Let it go. If you don't, your head might explode."

            "Maybe," he sighed as he watched Melinda pulling at her mother's hair and blowing spit bubbles for her own amusement. A small smile crept across his face as she gave him a quick glance out of the corner of her eye. 

            "The third vision?" Piper prompted him to go on with what he had been avoiding. 

            He heaved and let his shoulders droop. "I saw… well, I saw you and Melinda. You were all alone in a nursery, and it was late. You were crying, trying to hide from something. There was a pounding on the door. When I first saw it, I almost expected a burglar. But when a large hand hammered right through three inches of hard wood, I knew that it couldn't have been human. The thing flung aside the door, and you were trapped in the room. It looked just like a man would, with no real distinguishing features except it's eyes. They were blood red, and his face was pale as though it was sick or even dying. You tried to do to him what you did to me earlier, but it didn't work, and he killed you… both of you."

            Piper was trembling so terribly with the baby in her arms that Leo had to come and relieve her of the burden. Instead of going back to his seat, he planted himself firmly next to his wife and wrapped one arm around her waist. Melinda, sensing that something was wrong, stopped fidgeting in her father's lap and scrunched up her face as though she were about to cry. 

            "When?" Piper whispered the question, although he knew she really didn't want to know the answer.

            "I don't know, I'm sorry," Leonard replied softly. "I could only see the calendar on the wall, and it was set to July of 2003, so this is where I came. It could be tomorrow, or next week, or even next month, depending on when the last time you flipped the page was." 

            Leo took Piper's shaking hand within his own, and she immediately relaxed in his soft yet firm grip. Leonard's heart ripped in two as he saw a tear creep like a snake down her cheek, marring her creamy skin. _I loved her so much…he thought to himself as the two conversed in whispers. __Why couldn't that have been for me in the next life as well?_

_            Piper looked up and wiped away her tear, then smiled at Leonard for the first time. It lit up her reddened cheeks, and for a brief moment she looked like an angel, her eyes filled with white clouds and light dancing across her face. The sun glowed from the window behind her and he saw the halo of orange light the enveloped her head, giving her a divine luminescence. He smiled stupidly back at her as she squeezed Leo's hand and flicked her gaze back and forth between the two men. "Well, we can't call you Leo," she said at last. "and Father or Reverend would be just too weird for me. How does Leonard sound?"_

            He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and suddenly he felt as though he could get lost in her eyes. He let the corners of his mouth turn up as he nodded. "Leonard sounds great."


	4. Chapter 4

            Leonard couldn't avoid the puzzled looks he was getting from both of Piper's sisters as they all gathered around the same book he had read the spell out of back in his time. Like the house, it looked newer, and many of the pages that had been filled before were not anymore. Piper was flipping through it with ease, skipping large chunks of pages as though she knew them all by heart. Paige, the youngest, munched noisily on a sandwich while Phoebe shot him wary glances out of the corner of her eye. He couldn't help but notice them, and repeatedly he found himself returning the same furtive glimpses. 

            "So why doesn't Leo just orb Piper up There with the baby?" Paige asked between bites. "Seems like the best idea to me."

            Leonard passed one final peek in Phoebe's direction before he shook his head at the comment. "But you're forgetting what I told you. In the vision, Piper called out for Leo, but he never came. No one did."

            "So the thing, whatever it was, did something to the rest of us before he attacked Piper. Or we just couldn't hear her. There's no way we would just sit there and let her be killed." Phoebe leaned over her sister's shoulder while she skimmed the remaining pages. Piper, obviously frustrated, slammed the cover shut and huffed, irritated. 

            "It's not in here," she blustered as she placed Melinda on her hip. "I have demons with red eyes and green skin, human skin and black eyes, but no demons with red eyes and human skin. Are you sure it was red that you saw?"

            Leonard nodded, and was about to retell his third vision for the umpteenth time when he was bowled over by a trail of light that entered the attic from the ceiling. Leo materialized out of the tiny cerulean orbs, and smiled as he saw the priest flat on his back. Before anyone else noticed his mirth, he wiped the grin from his face and helped the other man to his feet with mock sympathy.

            "I'm sooo sorry about that," he chirped as he lifted Leonard roughly to his feet. "Didn't know you were there. Hmm. I must be losing my touch." 

            Piper rolled her eyes, knowing full well that Leo knew that the reverend was standing there. "So?" she asked, ignoring her husband's jealous mind. "What did you find out?"

            "Well, they could only think of one thing, and it's a long shot. The thing that attacked you wasn't _quite a demon. It was sort of a man." Leo waited as he took in the bewildered looks that the girls and Leonard gave him. "They're called Leeches, and they're actually very rare. Only the highest level demons can become a Leech. The elders don't even have a record of the last time a Leech was created, so it's likely that your ancestors were never attacked by one. That's why they're not in the Book of Shadows."_

            Paige swallowed the last bite of her sandwich with difficulty. "And what exactly does this Leech do?"

            "Exactly what its name implies," Leo replied. "It's a parasite of sorts. Once a demon's body is wounded beyond repair, but he is still alive, he has the capacity to use all his remaining power to take over the body of a human being, usually a man, and push the human soul out of the way while the demon controls his body. It lives off the human until its host is too weak to go on, and then both the demon and the human die a very slow and painful death. Emphasis on slow and painful."

            Phoebe nodded as she took Piper's hand and patted it reassuringly. "Ok, so that explains the human skin. But what about the red eyes? And where does this demon get all his energy from? If he's almost dead, then how is he so powerful?"

            "The red in the eyes isn't just a color. It's burst blood vessels from the human's body working in overdrive to try and push the demon out. And the way I understand it, the Leech uses the power of the Source, or at least the essence of him, to keep control as long as he can. The only reason for a Leech to actually become a Leech is to complete a task for the Source."

            "But we vanquished the Source already," Paige whined as she threw her crusts onto a paper plate. "Three times. Don't we ever get a break?"

            Leo shrugged. "The Elders don't think that the Leech we're looking for is powered by the Source. They think he _is the Source, or at least he will be. A descendant of the one you vanquished, out to be rid of the Charmed Ones forever, even if it means taking his own life. It's the only logical explanation."_

            Leonard scrunched up his eyebrows, deep in thought. "Let me get this straight," he said after a moment of awkward silence. "Your elder friends up There, wherever There is, know all this about the demon, but they don't know how to vanquish it? Why does that seem suspicious to me?"

            "Don't you think that They would do something if they could?" Leo retorted sharply, pointing toward the ceiling. "Don't you think that I would do something? Piper is my wife, and I would _never let anything hurt her or our child."_

            Leonard threw his hands in the air to shield himself from the verbal attack. "Whoa, I didn't mean that you wouldn't, pal. I'm just saying that there has to be some way to defeat this… thing. Every being has a weak spot."

            Leo's face reddened as he tried to control his temper. "Look, this isn't some TV show or video game where you just go for the bad guy's eyes and shoot it when it's not looking. This is real life, and people's lives are at stake. If you want to help, then maybe you should just back off." He turned his back to the group and took a few steps away. He spun around to face Leonard, his blue-green eyes fixed. "And by the way, I'm not your pal." He orbed out without another word. 

            Leonard sat on the hardwood floor in shock, his jaw hanging open slightly. He turned to Piper, who hung her head, her chin to her chest. "I'm sorry," he said to her, placing one hand gently on her shoulder in case she was upset with him and not her husband. "I didn't mean to offend him. I just wanted to help."

            "No, no," Piper replied, looking up. She had a feeble smile on her face, which just made her look so completely vulnerable, he was sure he could cry. "It's not your fault. Leo's just… he doesn't like knowing that there's nothing he can do. He likes having options. You kinda took that away from him, and became the savior instead." She wiped a tear from her cheek and stood from her position on the dusty old couch, pulling Phoebe along with her. "Let him have his fifteen minutes to cool down, he'll be back. Until then, we have an innocent to look for. He said the demons infect humans, which makes the victims innocents. We have to find ours. If we do, then maybe we can prevent all of this from happening, and then you can go home." Piper squeezed Leonard's upper arm lightly and smiled one last time, and he felt his heart melt as she walked quickly down the stairs. He remained behind as all three girls left him alone with the ancient book. 

            "But what if this is where I want home to be?" he whispered to himself. Shaking his tousled hair, he followed the women down the stairs. 

***

            _I'm reduced to drinking my own blood to survive. Granted, I don't mind the stuff, but it lacks the bitter, coppery taste that I so desire in human blood. I can only hope that it will sustain me until I am able to find a proper host. My selection here is rather limited, as I fear that I am too weak to escape this solitary pit in the choking smog of a desolate city. The floors in the dilapidated building where I have come to seek asylum are terribly damp, which doesn't help the ever-growing pain that seeps from the deep hole that has been cut next to my spine. The foul air makes it even harder to breathe than it already was when I collapsed here, and so I have made the effort to make no effort at all. I lie here for days on end, just waiting._

_            The only humans who have found their way into my humble, if not temporary, abode have been hormonal human teenagers looking for a "good time", as they call it, and runaways with no other option than to spend the night sucking down mold with me. While most of them never even knew I was here, they made for palatable morsels anyway. They always seem to taste better when they know that the end is drawing near. The thrill of the hunt, adrenaline pumping, and all of that human emotion bullshit. They were all great as an appetizer, but for the main course, I feel that I need something with a little more… meat. I hear talk, human voices above my head and through a small window that sheds a little light into my meager existence, of a crew of men coming to demolish the building where I'm currently residing. A crew means men. Men mean hosts. Hosts mean options. And options mean that I finally get to finish what I started before I was stabbed in the back - literally - by my own people. I have to find a human - a male human - who I believe is worthy of such a task. One who will be able to endure my presence within them long enough to let me prove to the council and the entire underworld, not to mention to myself, that I was__ worthy of the throne, and it was their own fatal mistake to dispose of me so recklessly. They have to know, and since I will lack the time to make them all pay personally, a demonstration of my power will have to suffice. The victim will have to be someone high up, a complicated kill who has eluded the evil masses for a long period of time… a Charmed One would do nicely, but why settle for killing just one, when I can have all three begging me for their lives? Then again, I could make them suffer first. The eldest just gave birth to a child… I wonder if babies bounce. It's quite a random inquisition, I suppose, but a valid one, considering my circumstances. Disemboweling might be a more suitable ending to the Charmed line, but then again, I've never been one for knives. They're always so messy… wait a moment, are those footsteps I hear? Heavy thudding… a human is drawing near. I can almost hear him breathing…_

***

            Christian let his abnormally large feet fall heavily onto the cracking cement floor in the old building where he was attempting to rebuild an orphanage that had been abandoned years before. He had to duck beneath the crusty, rotted rafters so he wouldn't hit his head. Though he often cursed his six-foot frame, often his work required his lofty height. He loved his job, which was mostly pro-bono work for a small construction company, but it took so much time away from his family. He missed his daughter, a beautiful little brunette with natural ringlets that had just begun to walk a week before, and he had missed it. His wife silently disdained his constant absence, but always greeted him with a loving smile, which just added another layer of guilt onto his heart. 

            He sighed as he adjusted his hard hat on his head, and wiped a band of sweat from his brow. The oppressive heat in the moldy basement of the building was nearly unbearable, and he paused in front of a small window to catch the light breeze under his sharply defined arms. He took in a low breath, breathing in the clean air. It was a refreshing change after nearly an hour of assessing the damage to the structure room by room, and snorting more dust and mold than he cared to. Using his shirtsleeve to wipe his face, Christian spread his arms out to either side so that the wind would cool down his overheated body. He closed his pale green eyes and tilted his head back, letting his helmet fall to the ground with a clatter. He let it lie there for a moment as he basked in the gusts that puffed in through the window before he bent over, his head down, to retrieve it. He looked up as he stood, and froze as he saw something moving in the shadows of a damp corner. He was perfectly still, holding his breath as he listened. Behind him there was a steady drip of water from a broken and out-of-commission pipe, but in front of him was the low, heavy breaths of something that he believed to be anything but human. He gulped hard as he saw a single gnarled hand reach out into the light, and pull the rest of the body into view. 

            It's skin was gray, like it was dead or dying, which contrasted sharply to the deep red gash that was cut into it's back. It's pure black eyes glowed with an intense passion as it pulled itself closer, it's pointed teeth bared. Christian took two slow steps backward before he ran into a wall, and out of places to run. He knees trembled as the thing drew closer, and just when he thought that maybe he could jump over it and run, it leapt at him faster than he could dodge it, blanketing his vision with a shower of red. He floundered for a moment against the wall, surprised at the thing's strength before he collapsed to his knees, his mind blank.


End file.
